Advances in Natural Products for Cutaneous Application

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to invite you to submit your manuscript(s) to the journal Pharmaceutics for a Special Issue entitled “Advances in Natural Products for Cutaneous Application” with open access. Traditional usage of natural products for cutaneous application stretches back millennia. In recent years, there has been a growing consumer demand for natural products on the market both as cosmetic products and for the local treatment of different skin impairments. Therefore, the active ingredients of these products include natural bioactive compounds (NBCs), either as isolated substances or as mixtures in herbal preparations, such as extracts, fatty oils, essential oils, expressed juices, and processed exudates. In parallel, there is an evident increase in scientific interest in natural products for cutaneous application. The development of these products represents a research challenge, which is related to several of their specificities. Namely, aside from safety and efficacy demands, specific quality requirements should be satisfied if the active ingredient of the product for the treatment of skin disorders is herbal preparation. This is due to their compounded chemical composition, where, among other tests, identification and quantification of appropriate substances and their stability should be assessed. In addition, when the products are intended for application on the skin, aesthetical acceptability for users after usage is of great importance, and thus special attention should be paid to their satisfactory sensory characteristics. Finally, unfavorable physicochemical properties of certain natural compounds and/or herbal preparations may require specific formulation strategies aimed at improving their solubility/bioavailability.

With this Special Issue, we would like to provide readers with the latest trends in the development of natural products for dermal application with actives being NBCs, intended for the care of normal or treatment of impaired skin. Therefore, we are interested in articles related to the evaluation of such products in terms of physicochemical and/or biopharmaceutical characterization, stability, efficacy, and safety assessment, as well as investigations of their sensory (aesthetic and applicative) properties.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Topical Delivery Systems;
• Nanoparticles and Nanotechnology;
• Pharmaceutical Technology and Manufacturing;
• Cosmetic products;
• Dermal products.

Thank you for your time and consideration in this matter. We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Ana Žugić
Dr. Vanja Tadić
Prof. Dr. Ivana Nešić
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Pharmaceutics is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.